Many mobile communications devices, such as smart phones, are equipped with a virtual assistant (also referred to as a virtual agent) configured to receive speech input from a user and employ various resources, either locally or accessible over a network, to recognize the user's speech, attempt to understand the user's intent and respond by performing one or more desired tasks based on that understanding (e.g., perform an internet search, make a telephone call, schedule an appointment, etc.). However, conventional virtual assistants are configured to respond to voice commands of the general user and therefore may be limited in their capabilities, often focusing on general information retrieval, personal scheduling or engaging communication functionality on the mobile device (e.g., initiating a phone call, sending a text or email message to an individual in the user's contact list, etc.).